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Monday's Mini-Report, 10.4.21

Today's edition of quick hits.

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Today's edition of quick hits:

* Afghanistan: "An explosion outside a mosque in the center of Kabul killed at least three people on Sunday, a Taliban spokesman said, underscoring the challenge of maintaining security for the country's new rulers after decades of waging war."

* On a related note, the Taliban is not popular across much of Afghanistan, and its troubles are just getting started: "Afghanistan's capital could be plunged into darkness as the winter sets in because the country's new Taliban rulers haven't paid Central Asian electricity suppliers or resumed collecting money from consumers."

* As if Facebook weren't having enough troubles: "On Sunday, Frances Haugen revealed herself to be 'Sean,' the whistle-blower against Facebook. A product manager who worked for nearly two years on the civic misinformation team at the social network before leaving in May, Ms. Haugen has used the documents she amassed to expose how much Facebook knew about the harms that it was causing and provided the evidence to lawmakers, regulators and the news media."

* An amazing report: "A massive trove of private financial records shared with The Washington Post exposes vast reaches of the secretive offshore system used to hide billions of dollars from tax authorities, creditors, criminal investigators and — in 14 cases involving current country leaders — citizens around the world."

* Harold Koh is the latest State Department departure: "A senior State Department official is leaving his role in the Biden administration. And on his way out, he has sent a scathing internal memo criticizing the president's use of a Trump-era policy to expel migrants from the southern border."

* A one-month reprieve: "The Senate approved a short-term extension of transportation programs Saturday, sending to President Biden stopgap legislation after the House again delayed a vote on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill."

* I guess it's not too surprising that a Koch-backed group is allegedly fueling opposition to school-mask requirements.

* Important research: "Police killings in America have been undercounted by more than half over the past four decades, according to a new study that raises pointed questions about racial bias among medical examiners and highlights the lack of reliable national record keeping on what has become a major public health and civil rights issue."

* Brexit was an extraordinarily bad idea: "Fights break out among angry motorists trying to get fuel. Grocery staples are out of stock on store shelves. A charity warns that doubling heating bills will force a million households to rely on extra blankets to stay warm. This was supposed to be the year the U.K. broke free of the European Union and forged ahead as a buccaneering free trader, delivering the benefits of a new, confident 'Global Britain' to workers and companies at home. Instead, that picture of Brexit utopia is looking more like a dystopia."

See you tomorrow.